The present invention is embodied within a conveyor for moving driverless vehicles along a course such as through an automobile washing apparatus.
Presently known in the vehicle conveyor field are several types of conveyors for moving a vehicle along past car washing equipment. Generally speaking, such conveyors are of complex, costly construction and represent a substantial portion of the overall cost of a car wash installation. Such know conveyors, in addition to being complex, commonly require the site to be extensively modified prior to installation of the conveyor system. Subsequent to extensive modification of the floor site to receive the conveyor system, considerable installation work is incurred in setting up of the conveyor and when so installed must be considered a permanent installation. In the installation of certain known conveyors the floor must be of a specific configuration with the installation of concrete forms followed by a concrete pouring operation and lastly the installation of the conveyor. Should the site be later desired for use other than as a car wash installation the modification effort is lost with additional effort required to return the floor to its original state. Also objectionable with known conveyors is their use of complex components which incur high original cost and subsequent costly maintenance and replacement. Additionally found undesirable with known units is the risk car wash attendants are subjected to by coming into contact with exposed chain and other moving components.
Previous efforts to provide a vertically displaceable, tire contacting roller have been made such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,719,151. The roller shown therein is in cantilevered relationship with offset, multiple rollers engaging complex track structure in place within a specifically contoured floor surface and accordingly, does not achieve the objectives of the present conveyor.